159
ADCH 12 (2) pp. 159–177 Intellect Limited 2013
Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education
Volume 12 Number 2
© 2013 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/adch.12.2.159_1
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design education
narrative visualization
metaphor
visual metaphor
behavioural
finance
financial literacy
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Parsons The New School for Design
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Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts
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Parsons The New School for Design
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
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The authors provide a scholarly definition for metaphor-rich, story-driven ‘narra-
tive visualization’. They argue that metaphors create a rich and emotionally reso-
nant set of associations that frame the narrative and effectively support ‘System 1’
(or intuition-based) thinking and decision-making that Daniel Kahneman and
others have identified as the primary drivers of financial behaviour. The authors
then apply these observations to a case study in which they analyse student work
on a financial literacy design project. They discuss best practices for teaching narra-
tive visualization and argue for its relevance in a contemporary design education
especially its capacity to represent and reflectively explore complex financial and
other concepts.
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IntroductIon
In this article we assert the importance of narrative visualization methodologies
as part of a contemporary design education, and argue that narrative visuali-
zation is especially important in any context in which design can both facili-
tate understanding and potentially influence behaviour (e.g., public health,
financial management). Recent research in behavioural economics suggests
that such narratively driven approaches to information design (in particular,
their reliance on metaphor), engage ‘System 1’, or intuition-based, thinking
(Kahneman 2011), and hence have a strong impact on decision-making.
Narrative visualizations are thus a crucial tool in the growing field of
financial literacy. The 2008 recession prompted governments and non-profit
organizations in the United States and other countries to step up their efforts
to improve financial literacy among the public (cf. the Financial Literacy
Research Consortium, http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/flrc-pr.htm). As with
public health and other areas of public importance, one of the key research
and funding priorities has been to develop more effective communication
strategies and educational resources. Existing financial literacy materials
however thoroughly planned and assessed often lack consistent design
methodologies. (N.B. for policy-makers, the word ‘design’ usually connotes
only the design of research instruments such as surveys or studies.) This
lack of methodologies presents a significant opportunity for design educa-
tors and designers in the twenty-first century. In the design classroom, finan-
cial literacy provides an excellent context for students’ exploration of narrative
visualization; financial literacy also provides opportunities for students to
broaden their skills in information design to include a wider range of visuali-
zation strategies.
This article is in two parts. In Part 1 the authors define ‘narrative visualiza-
tion’ and discuss its reliance on visual metaphor. We relate the emotional and
cognitive impact of narrative visualizations to recent research in behavioural
economics regarding individuals’ interpretation of information and financial
decision-making. In Part 2 we apply these insights to a case study in which
design educators and financial educators collaborated to approach financial
literacy as a ‘design problem’. Design students were paired with students in a
financial literacy-training programme to identify issues of critical importance
to the future counsellors’ clients (e.g. dealing with poor credit scores); the
design students were then tasked with creating short time-based animations
that could serve as financial literacy instructional materials.
To analyse the finished products, we develop a conceptual framework that
identifies crucial factors of an effective narrative visualization, and use the
framework to analyse an example of student work. Finally, we suggest that
this framework could be extended to development of assessment tools.
Part I: narratIve vIsualIzatIon and behavIoural
economIcs
Defining ‘narrative visualization’
The authors define narrative visualization as illustrations, animations, story-
boards and graphic novels that engage the viewer with metaphor and story-
telling. This is very different from the data-driven use of the same term by
researchers such as Edward Segel and Jeffrey Heer (2010) from the computer-
and graphics-oriented Stanford VIS group (http://vis.stanford.edu/): they
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emphasize the story-telling aspects in visualizations of complex data sets and
other schematics.
In contrast, the authors’ (Parsons) definition of ‘narrative visualization’
refers to the kinds of illustrations that are frequently used to explain financial
concepts and elements in financial journalism and financial education mate-
rials (see Figure 1). Largely hand-drawn and pictorial combining simple
imagery with graphic elements – these visualizations use metaphors and
implied relationships to imbue complex financial concepts with emotional or
conceptual context. These narrative visualizations often depict emotional cues
(pain, fear, joy) overtly through a character’s body language and facial expres-
sion when referencing issues that have emotional resonance for the viewer.
This resonance allows viewers to engage with the concepts on an intuitive
basis: one that relates to heuristic-based ‘System 1’ thinking (Kahneman
2011). As we discuss in the section ‘Two systems thinking’ below, the intui-
tive engagement that narrative visualizations engender may have a significant
impact on financial decision-making and behaviour.
Comparison of these two examples highlights some differences between
data-based and narrative-based visualizations. The visualization in Figure 2
lies somewhere along a continuum ranging from ‘pure’ information/data-
driven to ‘pure’ pictorial/narrative, and integrates elements of both. Figure 2
illustrates the ways in which metaphors can be embedded deeply and
implicitly in a visualization that would otherwise seem primarily schematic.
This flow chart plots the evolution of the 2008 financial crisis through two
Figure 1.
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Figure 2.
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narratives that develop over time. The narratives are composed of sequences
of events that overlap chronologically; one fuels a speculative frenzy while the
other results in financial crisis. Both sequences of events are framed by two
overarching metaphorical associations: green=proceed/safe; red=stop/danger.
As the sequence of events and actions accelerates, the background shifts
from neutral (or possibly clear) blue sky to green, and then from blue sky to
red. Analysis of this image hints at the underlying tension between factual
information (or data) and the subjectivity of the metaphorical frame through
which it is encoded and communicated. Because the viewer reads this graphic
top to bottom, the crisis is identified with a descent or downward orientation.
The frame emerges as a form of master narrative that directs the complexity
of the data in deterministic and, data purists may claim, reductive ways.
‘Hybrid’ visualizations of this kind point to the fact that maps of any kind are
metaphorical: the question is not whether metaphors are present, but how
apparent they are to the reader.
Figure 1, in contrast, is rich in explicit metaphorical content. Illustrating a
man hanging onto the edge of a credit card by his fingertips, it is a dramatic
representation of the feeling of financial ‘abyss’ that many experience in their
relationships to credit and to the credit industry. As in Figure 2, the red colour
signifies danger. The card/abyss is proffered by a disembodied hand, which
represents the financial system as an impersonal, oppressive and rigid machine.
Rigidity and impersonality are further signaled by the geometric, mechanical
rendering of the line that outlines the shapes and by the contrasting scale
between the big man/big hand and small man/small hand. The article accom-
panying the illustration explains how banks arrange the order of debit card
transactions at the end of the day to maximize the number of times that the
customer can be charged overdraft fees. The narrative suggested in Figure 1
does not lie in the depiction of a linear sequence of events; rather, it appeals in a
visceral and emotionally laden way to the viewer’s anxieties surrounding exces-
sive debt, bank practices and financial insecurity. Its explicit use of metaphor
is crucial to understanding how this image functions, because the associations
arising from the metaphor frame the financial content in ways that affect the
viewer’s interpretation of the image and the way credit is subsequently viewed.
Besides asserting that the depiction of emotional content is information
visualization (of a different kind from data visualization), the authors contend
that the role of metaphor in conveying emotional and other content, in
these narrative visualizations has been insufficiently studied. Like the disci-
pline of rhetoric more generally (Engbers 2014), metaphorical devices have
historically been associated with language, and only in the last few decades
has interest in their visual representations been examined in any systematic
fashion in the design context. Recent studies include the role of metaphor in
advertising (Forceville 1996), corporate branding (Koller 2009; Engbers 2014),
and editorial cartoons of political issues (El Refaie 2003, 2009) and the 2009
financial crises (Bounegru and Forceville 2011). Because images are frequently
embedded in complex texts, formal analyses have expanded to include multi-
modal forms (Forceville 2008; O’Halloran 1999).
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Traditionally metaphor relies on the correspondence of ideas and attributes
between a symbol (e.g., dove) and thing symbolized (i.e., peace). Contemporary
theories of metaphor, however, rely on a broad understanding of metaphor
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as a mapping of concepts (Lakoff 1992), rather than an artefact of language.
Conceptual metaphor theory, as this framework became known, grew out of
the seminal work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, based on early work by
Stephen Pepper (1942), M. J. Reddy (1979) and others. In Metaphors We Live
By (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), they argue that metaphors structure the way
individuals perceive the world, and that many metaphors have their origin
in physical experiences. They analyse families of metaphorical associations
around idioms such as ‘life is a journey’ and ‘argument is war’ to demon-
strate how these metaphorical phrases both shape and are shaped by the way
humans conceptualize different aspects of their lives. Of particular relevance
to financial visualizations are the ‘orientation’ metaphors that underlie ideas
such as ‘up’ is good and ‘down’ is bad. As Lakoff and Johnson suggest, these
associations may have arisen because of humans’ physical stance in the world:
we tend to face the world from a vertical position, so lying down is associated
with illness or weakness. Regardless of the origin, the association of up-as-
good pervades how individuals ‘read’ information, and how they organize
their visual schema. Quantities are graphed along a vertical axis in which up
is associated with more and down with less; similarly, the phrase ‘GDP is up’
connotes positive change. Conversely, the metaphorical phrase ‘falling into
debt’ denotes imminent peril (as reinforced visually by the dangerous position
of the protagonist in Figure 1).
While Lakoff and Johnson stressed the universality of conceptual metaphor
theory, their focus was primarily on (English) language. More recent studies
(cf. Casasanto 2009, 2013), have shown that while specific metaphorical and
linguistic details may vary, such conceptual mappings occur in many cultures.
Body gestures, too, may reinforce these correlations, such as the association
of ‘good’ phrases with gestures by the dominant hand, and ‘bad’ phrases with
the less dominant hand (Casasanto 2010).
The metaphors used in narrative visualizations thus do more than provide
convenient visual symbols for abstract concepts. They draw upon and reinforce
existing conceptual frameworks. This process is similar to ‘genre recognition’
(Trogu 2013), which allows readers to infer broader and richer attributes than
those presented at face value. For example, the use of the credit card to repre-
sent a potential financial/physical abyss in Figure 1 is made more powerful
by the conceptual (and experientially familiar) association of ‘falling’ with
‘danger’ and our likening the feeling of being in debt with that of insecurity.
The credit card victim is the protagonist in this metaphorically rich implied
narrative. Metaphor in a narrative form encourages the viewer to ‘buy into’
the framing implied by the visualization (‘credit is dangerous’), and this ulti-
mately influences both the way the viewer thinks about personal credit and
the way he/she subsequently behaves. This ‘reflectioninnarrative’ (Sosa et al.
2013) is a process of viewer reflection on a story during its telling.
As Sosa et al. remark, the value of the design process lies in its ability
to ‘deal with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and conflicted
values’ (Schön, cited in Sosa et al. 2013: 3), which are inherent in the ‘ill-
structured problems [of the] real world’ (Rittel, cited in Sosa et al. 2013: 3).
Researchers have found that when humans grapple with these ill-structured
problems, they more often engage an intuitive rather than rational process to
make decisions. Recent research in the field of behavioural economics exam-
ines how individuals form judgments and make decisions about financial
and other aspects of their lives under these conditions of uncertainty and
complexity.
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Behavioural economics
Behavioural economics has arisen in recent years to challenge the neoclassical
model that individuals always act ‘rationally’. Based on clinical and observa-
tional studies documenting people’s attitudes and decision-making around
money, behavioural economics encompasses work by economists, psycholo-
gists and cognitive scientists. Herbert Simon (1957) observed the limitations of
time, information and cognitive ability that individuals face in making complex
decisions, and coined the phrase ‘bounded rationality’ (Note similarities with
the idea of the ‘four-second window’ [Trogu 2013]). Citing clinical and obser-
vational studies, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published a series of
influential papers (1974, 1979, 1981, 1986), defining a number of systematic
biases regarding probability and risk. These biases, which most people share,
cause them to rely on a set of simplifying heuristics (or rules of thumb) with
varying degrees of accuracy. To account for these observed biases, Tversky
and Kahneman developed prospect theory, a modification of the neoclassical
notion of utility, and explored its consequences for decision-making.
Framing
One factor that influences the less-rational decision-making process is the
way that choices are framed. In ‘The framing of decisions and the psychology
of choice’, Tversky and Kahneman (1981), assert that reliance on frames to
interpret information and to make decisions is both significant and empiri-
cally verifiable: when the frame shifts, so do decisions. ‘[B]ecause the value
function is steeper for losses than for gains, a difference between options will
loom larger when it is framed as a disadvantage of one option rather than as
an advantage of the other option’ (Tversky and Kahneman 1981: 211).
Richard Thaler, who extended this work to individuals’ behaviour with
regard to savings (1980, 1990), describes this theory in the context of consumer
behaviour using the following example:
credit card companies banned their affiliated stores from charging
higher prices to credit card users. A bill to outlaw such agreements was
presented to Congress. When it appeared likely that some kind of bill
would pass, the credit card lobby turned its attention to form rather
than substance. Specifically, it preferred that any difference between
cash and credit card customers take the form of a cash discount rather
than a credit card surcharge. This preference makes sense if consumers
would view the cash discount as an opportunity cost of using the credit
card but the surcharge as an out-of-pocket cost.
(1980: 45)
Individuals’ reliance on the ‘frame’ to make decisions is analogous to reli-
ance on visual perspective to make judgments about relative size and position
when navigating physical space. As Tversky and Kahneman note, ‘changes of
perspective often reverse the relative apparent size of objects and the relative
desirability of options’ (1981: 457). Changes in the visual framing of situations
can reverse an individual’s thinking about the relative merits of two positions.
This influence of framing is also inherent in the understanding of visual
images. O’Toole (1990) constructed a semiotic framework of art analysis by
adapting M. A. K. Halliday’s (1985) systemic-functional linguistics to images.
As O’Toole noted, when viewers of artworks lack sufficient knowledge or
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training to appreciate details of representation or composition they tend
to interact with and interpret the image through the ‘modal function’ that
incorporates issues of ‘gaze’ (the viewer’s), perspective, modality (irony,
authenticity, omissions, explicit symbolism, etc.) and framing.
Metaphors also create frames and encourage changes in perspective, artic-
ulating what Schön and Rein refer to as ‘cognitive frames’ (1994). Consider
the two narrative visualizations in Figures 3 and 4. These illustrations have a
common subject – that of US taxpayers’ ‘rescue’ of the federal mortgage associa-
tions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – but the framing of each is quite different.
In Figure 3, Fannie and Freddie are depicted as the arms of a drowning
man needing to be saved (thrown a lifeline) by taxpayers. In this illustration,
the taxpayer is rescuing the insolvent Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The text in
the first, ‘we need a bigger boat’, aligns with the neoclassical model of logical
decision-making in that it makes an essentially rational appeal for more capi-
talization. In contrast, Figure 4 depicts the taxpayer not as empowered rescuer,
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
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but as hapless victim. The taxpayer (shown as a boat) is imminently threatened
by Fannie Mae (overweight individual), while Freddie Mac, equally overweight,
passively waits to be rescued from the roof of one of many ‘underwater’ houses.
The significant frame shift between the two images is in the ways these
agencies are understood. In the first illustration the reference point for Freddie
Mac and Fannie Mae is represented by hands of a vulnerable man in urgent
need of rescue; in the second Freddie and Fannie are seen as perhaps equally
in need of rescue, but undeserving of it, putting their own survival selfishly
and recklessly ahead of that of both the underwater homeowners and the US
taxpayer. Put another way, in Figure 3 Fannie and Freddie are most at risk; in
Figure 4 the US taxpayers are most threatened.
Illustration’s historical importance as a medium for political persua-
sion is something of a testament to its capacity to shift frames (reference
points, perspectives and points of view) through extensive use of visual
metaphor.
Two systems thinking
The ‘two systems’ approach to understanding cognition can be seen as a
modern version of Aristotle’s logos and pathos (Engbers 2014), or reason and
intuition. In its modern form, it is a ‘dual-process’ theory (one that divides
cognitive operations into two categories).
The terms ‘System 1’ and ‘System 2’ were first used by psychologists Keith
Stanovich and Richard West (2000), and subsequently elaborated on by others
(cf. Kahneman and Frederick 2002; De Neys 2006). In Thinking, Fast and Slow,
Kahneman (2011) outlines the differences between Systems 1 and 2 thinking
with the following table.
System 2 thinking is analytical: it requires a careful consideration of
details, and an aptitude for working through and rationally weighing
all the options. System 1 thinking is based on heuristics and on intuitive
understanding of situations and is also lazy; as Kahneman notes, thinking
rationally is hard work:
(we) gravitate toward the least demanding course of action (because)
in the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is
driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into
our nature.
(2011: 35)
Table 1.
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1. Asreportedby
ProPublica:Journalism
forthePublicInterest,
http://projects.
propublica.org/bailout/
main/summary
,
accessed31August
2013.
When faced with new information, System 1 thinking creates a fast holistic
picture of the situation, often relying on metaphors (whether verbal, concep-
tual or visual) to provide a rapid sizing up. It uses metaphorical fram-
ing to guide the individual’s interpretation of the situation and subsequent
actions. Cognitive biases occur when System 1 thinking is substituted
for System 2 thinking (usually without the decision-maker being aware
of it). The cognitive bias towards less-effortful thinking is illustrated by the
viewer’s response to Figure 3. System 1 thinking encourages the viewer to
believe that the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac imperils
public finances; a System 2 analysis of the same event might have reasoned
that the total cost of the bailout was $187 billion (or 31 per cent of total
Federal outflows),
1
that the Fed stands to recoup some or all of the money
it spent, and that the situation might be more nuanced than the illustration
suggests.
Narrative visualizatioN
The authors assert that visual metaphor is central to the effectiveness of
financial communication through narrative visualization for the following
three reasons:
1. By being visual, illustrative metaphors engage perceptual intuition.
Colour, texture, the angle of a gaze, the tilt of a head, all offer very subtle
yet unmistakable cues that are understood at the very instant they are
perceived. System 1 thinking is primordial: it will instantly detect a sharp
look, a change in the environment or a subtle variation in tone of voice. It
does this extremely quickly (often in a fraction of a second), and is highly
responsive to visual cues.
2. By being metaphorical, illustrations require little new skill acquisition
and investment. Conceptual Metaphor Theory demonstrates that indi-
viduals already have an available storehouse of embodied understand-
ings of the world (the learning completed since childhood) and have
an equally vast repository of the sociocultural understandings gleaned
from thousands of hours of listening to others, playing, interacting
socially, watching television, acquiring language and being schooled.
By activating associative memory, metaphors allow individuals to
access what has already been learned (with considerable effort) and to
bring together these elements more effortlessly in new configurations
and contexts.
3. Visual metaphors are effective in helping viewers to change a perspective
or point of view. These metaphors have not only the capacity to inform,
but to influence; therefore, in combination with an increased capacity to
process cognitively, they may also have the capacity to alter attitudes and
behaviours.
Part ii: Narrative visualizatioN aNd desigN educatioN
Design 4: A case study
Purpose
In the Design 4 course at Parsons, students acquire basic communication
design skills for engaging and informing through visual means. A dedicated
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section of this course in Spring 2012 encouraged students to extend their
enquiry towards using design and metaphor to influence behaviour.
Context
Parsons the New School for Design offers a broad range of design programmes,
including an undergraduate management programme that awards a Bachelor
of Business Administration degree. This programme (Strategic Design +
Management) teaches design-infused management skills to students inter-
ested in the application of design-oriented innovation to the operation of
business.
In the first two years of the programme, students take courses in economics,
social theory, marketing, statistics, art history and written communication, as
well as a four-course sequence of design studies. The design studies sequence
is intended to help students synthesize design with management as they
progress through their programme. The final course in the design sequence
Design 4 – is a continuation of ‘Design 3: Visual Organization and Information
Design’, with an emphasis on the latter. The class is studio based and draws
upon previously acquired design and technology skills.
In Spring 2012, The Visualizing Finance Research Lab offered a topic-spe-
cific section of this course, called ‘Design 4: Visualizing Finance’. Although
students applied knowledge from their economics and statistics courses, the
purpose of this course was to teach design rather than financial concepts. The
instructor posed questions such as ‘how can information design be used to
make sense of a complex world?’; ‘how can we evaluate data, events, proc-
esses and organizational systems visually?’; ‘how can information design
provide framing that may promote good (or bad) decisions?’; ‘how can it be
used to learn something new, tell stories, and build awareness about ourselves
and the world we live in?’.
Although the Design 4 course was originally configured to teach informa-
tion design through the graphical representation of data, the explicit purpose
of ‘Design 4: Visualizing Finance’ was to teach ‘narrative visualization’. This
was an ambitious goal: first because a course based on conventional informa-
tion design should ideally precede one based on narrative visualization, and
second because narrative visualization demands a variety of complex interpre-
tations and analyses, the totality of which are difficult to accomplish within
fifteen three-hour weekly class meetings.
The final and principal project in the course was creation of a brief video
or animation depicting a financial decision-making process and incorporat-
ing data and financial concepts. This represented The Visualizing Finance
Research Lab’s first attempt at implementation of some of the design
insights described in this paper, beginning to develop and test a methodol-
ogy for creating narrative visualizations in both academic and professional
contexts.
collaboratioN
For this project, the Design 4 class partnered with a class called
‘Personal and Consumer Finance’, at The City University of New York’s
professional-development evening school for working adults. This CUNY
course is designed to train community leaders to work as financial counsellors
with individuals in underserved populations.
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This partnership encouraged Design 4 students to a more reflective user-
centred design process by ‘spending time with users/citizens in their own
environments, rather than working on a project abstractly in another space’
(Manzini et al. cited in Chick 2012), and by recognizing the expertise that
resides in those whose interests are affected by the problem and its proposed
solution (Chick 2012).
The counsellor-training partnership provided context and content for the
design students in several ways; it
acquainted students with populations different from their own.•
required students to recognize and incorporate cultural and socio-economic •
factors outside their own experience.
gave students live/simulated dynamic representations of financial behav-•
iours and decisions.
provided a story line based on financial counsellors’ experiences with •
target audiences.
The CUNY class can also be seen as a consumer/client for the completed
student work: materials that were intended to be responsive to user needs by
being
culturally relevant to the target populations.•
richer and more emotionally engaging than existing informational materials.•
available to individuals; also for use in counselling, education or training •
sessions.
The partner’s expected field usage of these materials can in future provide
opportunities for critique from trainers, practitioners, and end users; also
opportunities for assessment of the materials’ effectiveness.
Background of partner
The ‘Personal and Consumer Finance’ course was originated and developed by
Joyce Moy, an educator/activist/attorney who has extensive experience devel-
oping support structures for underserved populations. Ms Moy’s textbook
makes substantial use of practical examples and role-plays drawn from her
experiences and financial counsellors’. In several class sessions, her students
engage in a role-play that simulates a counselling session on a specific finan-
cial topic with related behaviours. Each role-play is a complex and multifac-
eted encounter, organized in a narrative form to train the counsellors across
multiple dimensions, such as
empathy and interpersonal communication (through body language, tone •
of voice and linguistic choices for dialogue).
command of information and reference to available resources.•
analysis of data, financial analysis and planning.•
decision-making ability.•
ethical/legal integrity.•
The instructor and students who assess the counsellor’s emotional intelligence
and command of factual information, as well as the psychological discuss
the simulated session and cultural factors involved in the clients’ problems,
behaviours and possible solutions.
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Methodology
Selected students from the Design 4 class visited the ‘Personal and Consumer
Finance’ class as observers to familiarize themselves with the target
populations, financial concepts and the purposes of financial counselling. In
a subsequent visit, Design 4 students and instructor videotaped a simulated
counselling session.
The role-play scenario concerned a young couple that is consulting the
financial counsellor because they want to marry; however, the man’s father
had accumulated credit card debts in the son’s name and the son’s credit
score was badly compromised. This situation was affecting the couple’s
decision to marry, and potentially affecting their plans for a family and
home.
Back in the Parsons classroom, Design 4 students were provided with
a printed script of the role-play and with uploaded versions of the video-
tape. The students formed groups of two or three to process the information
and to draft narrative and visual strategies for interpretation of the mate-
rial. Instructors from The Visualizing Finance Research Lab briefly explained
the financial content and context of the role-play. Students were then asked
to present financial concepts and stories directly through explication (text,
graphs and dialogue) and metaphorically through the creation of charac-
ters, settings and story line. Specifically, students were required to create a
narrative, time-based representation of the financial scenario, identifying and
incorporating the content elements and visualization elements presented in
Table 2.
These elements provided a framework for analysing student work through
the lens of the ideas presented in Part I. The content elements combine stand-
ard elements of financial literacy with insights from behavioural econom-
ics, and are arranged roughly in descending order from more analytical (or
System 2) to more intuitive (or System 1). The visualization elements include
crucial narrative factors and are similarly ordered. (This suggests that graphical
elements are more aligned with financial concepts, while character and setting
lend themselves more naturally to the depiction of behavioural and cultural
Figure 5.
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Aaron Fry | Jennifer Wilson | Carol Overby
172
aspects.) Elements such as genre and composition were omitted because the
table is intended to identify only those elements that drive narrative visuali-
zation. Aside from the reference under ‘character’, metaphor is not explicitly
listed since it operates across the table, creating bridges between content and
visualization elements.
For example, metaphor can communicate a financial concept in the form of
a character, as seen in Figure 4’s metaphor of a ‘bloated bureaucracy’ (Fannie
Mae) as an overweight woman.
Use of metaphor helped students balance narrative aspects (dialogue,
situation and emotional tenor) with practicalities (financial data and choice
options) in their story-telling. Students came to understand that ‘real-world’
financial situations incorporate a complex layering of frames behavioural/
emotional and cultural/familial, as well as the more pragmatic or information
based and that these situations often arise from decisions that are intuitive
rather than analytical/rational.
The Design 4 students had to reduce a twelve-and-half-minute role-play
into a three-and-half-minute clip. They prioritized information, condens-
ing some aspects while allowing time to elaborate on others. These students
also had to choose the type of story to craft their characters, settings and
coNteNt elemeNts
Financial factors
Data: numbers, budgets, facts, etc.•
Information•
Concepts: time value of money, negotiation, legal information such as •
policies, loan terms, etc.
Behavioural aspects
Consequences: financial and emotional•
Decision processes: negotiation skills, strategies and methods•
Ethics: the right/wrong thing to do•
Culture: norms, expectations and understandings within a •
community
Emotion: personal and subjective factors such as relationships, •
loyalties, opinions.
visualizatioN elemeNts
Graphs/maps•
Text: on-screen text/data•
Dialogue: monologue, verbal explication by characters or voiceover•
Setting: staging, including objects and props•
Character: including archetype(s)/metaphor(s)•
Body language, expressed by character(s)•
Facial expression, expressed by character(s)•
Tone of voice, expressed by voice-over and/or by character(s).•
Table 2.
ADCHE_12.2_Fry_Overby_159-177.indd 172 5/23/14 3:57:26 PM
Teaching the design of narrative visualization for nancial …
173
props and the way to activate elements within a narrative arc. They found
the development of characters to be a complex process, intertwined with the
physical setting of the story.
In the analysis below, the authors use the elements in Table 2 to assess
a student project’s success in fulfilling criteria for an effective narrative
visualization.
Outcome
This project is a 3:12-minute key-frame partially animated narrative with
sound and voice-over. The visual style uses simple vector-based graph-
ics (similar to those used in the television animation South Park) over
photographic montages that range from the interior of a church to a collage
of credit cards. Some personae are represented metaphorically in memora-
ble ways: Tom as a frightening vampire and Tom’s father as a blood-sucking
mosquito who drains (transforms) Tom’s credit score. Eventually the students’
efforts to resolve Tom’s credit problem lead to a ‘brick wall’, necessitating
additional reflection and research.
This project scored quite high on the ‘visualization elements’ relating to
System 1. Behavioural aspects are clearly communicated through the char-
acters (the disappearing groom, the predatory father), their facial expressions
and their tones of voice. The visualization engages with financial concepts and
behavioural consequences to a limited degree, but is slight to non-existent
on imparting financial information and data. The viewer never learns, for
example, how a credit score is calculated, what credit-score numbers mean,
and what the consequences of having a low credit score are. Stronger aspects
in this project were the (metaphorical) personification of Tom’s father as a
mosquito, and the ethnically and culturally relevant characterizations and
setting. However, the lack of props and other design elements that would
indicate more specificity in the setting (further underscoring cultural factors)
were a missed opportunity, as was the lack of articulation of the character’s
bodies, which limited their expressive ability.
Figure 6.
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Aaron Fry | Jennifer Wilson | Carol Overby
174
This brief analysis suggests that the elements in Table 2 can help to illu-
minate the relationships among visualization elements, financial factors
and behavioural aspects. The Table also highlights current shortcomings in
student projects. Future iterations of the Design 4 course will create added
opportunities to support students in incorporating financial concepts. The
authors also plan to refine the elements in the Table before using it as the
basis of a formal assessment instrument.
The framework created by Table 2 may also be useful in analysing profes-
sional narrative visualizations depicting financial information of the kind
discussed in Part A. For example, in Figure 1, the primary message involves
financial concepts (the nature of credit) as they are manifested in behavioural
terms, through emotional factors. These ideas are delivered largely through
setting, character, body language and facial expression.

In summary, research in behavioural economics indicates that individuals
seldom make financial decisions in a purely analytical or rational way; rather,
they use intuitive methods such as rules of thumb or heuristics. These findings
parallel contemporary theories of metaphor suggesting that they communi-
cate intuitively, drawing upon viewers’ embodied and/or sociocultural under-
standings. Narrative visualizations, which use metaphor and story-telling to
communicate financial information and behaviours, could therefore be an
important tool for promoting financial literacy.
The authors applied these ideas to an undergraduate design course, in
which students collaborated with financial counsellors to create narrative
visualizations informed by behavioural economics. The authors found:
the best students were able to create visualizations that portrayed infor-•
mational, cultural and emotional complexities.
the incorporation of visual metaphors in student work efficiently conveyed •
information, allowing intuitive/fast understanding by viewers.
the list of elements in Table 2 helped students and instructors to identify •
best visual strategies for incorporating both informational and behavioural
aspects.
the collaboration helped students to account for cultural considerations •
and create more user-centred design responses.
In addition to the next steps described towards the end of the previous section,
the ideas articulated in this article suggest a number of avenues for future
exploration, including a more systematic engagement of narrative visualization
in design curricula. Of broader import, however, would be the development of
financial literacy programmes that incorporate metaphor-rich narrative visu-
alizations that could be disseminated and assessed for effectiveness.
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Fry, A., Wilson, J. and Overby, C. (2013), ‘Teaching the design of narrative
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
The Visualizing Finance Research Lab was founded at Parsons The New
School for Design in 2009 to explore the uses of metaphor-based and story-
telling visualizations to convey financial concepts and information. This inter-
disciplinary group includes a financial educator/practitioner (Carol Overby,
co-director), a fine artist/design educator (Aaron Fry, co-director), and a
mathematician (Jennifer Wilson, Eugene Lang College The New School for
ADCHE_12.2_Fry_Overby_159-177.indd 176 4/29/14 8:39:36 PM
Teaching the design of narrative visualization for nancial …
177
Liberal Arts), as well as associate members in economics, fine arts, journalism,
communication and design.
Aaron Fry (M.F.A) is Associate Professor of Design Strategies, teaching
Communication and Information Design in the Parsons Strategic Design and
Management programme.
Contact: Parsons The New School, 2 West 13
th
Street, room 1013, New York,
NY 10011, USA.
Jennifer Wilson (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Mathematics working in
mathematical applications to the social sciences; she teaches classes in game
theory, mathematical modelling and mathematics and images.
Contact: Parsons The New School, 2 West 13
th
Street, room 1013, New York,
NY 10011, USA.
Carol Overby (M.B.A) is Assistant Professor of Design + Management,
teaching Finance, Accounting and Business Models in the Strategic Design
and Management programme.
Contact: Parsons The New School, 2 West 13
th
Street, room 1013, New York,
NY 10011, USA.
Aaron Fry, Jennifer Wilson and Carol Overby have asserted their right under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors
of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
ADCHE_12.2_Fry_Overby_159-177.indd 177 4/29/14 8:39:36 PM
intellect books & journals Performing Arts Visual Arts Film Studies Cultural & Media Studies
Fashion and War in Popular Culture
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Aside from the occasional nod to epaulettes or use of
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